to experiments which confirmed the supposition, and inaugurated others
that have borne fruit, as we see. It was a great moment in the annals of
discovery, and from that time to this the genius of improvement has
moved onward with unprecedented strides; and this in the application of
steam-power as well as the results, stupendous as these last have been.
For as there is no department of industry that has not made immense
advances since, none on which steam has not directly or indirectly been
brought to bear with effect; so there has been no end to the ingenuity
and ingenious devices by which steam has been coaxed into subjection to
human use and made the pliant minister of the master, man. All these
results follow as a natural consequence from the first discovery of its
motive power by the Marquis of Worcester, and the subsequent invention
of James Watt, by which the force detected was rendered uniform, instead
of fitful and spasmodic, as it had been before. And yet, important as
was the discovery of the one, and ingenious as is the invention of the
other, both are of slight account in the presence of the great fact of
nature observed by the English nobleman and humoured by the Scottish
artisan. The _genie_ whom the one captured and the other tamed, is the
great magic worker, apart from whose subtle strength their ingenuity had
been wasted, and had come to naught.

But here I must restrain my rovings, and recall my purpose to descant on
other points. And indeed the uses of water are so numerous and varied
that the subject might well engross a lecture by itself; and I must
needs therefore cut the matter short. It is only Hodge-Podge, moreover,
I have undertaken to dish up before you, and I must keep my word. For,
fain as I am to dilate on the many economic virtues of water, I must not
forget that the pot contains other ingredients, and that the dish I am
serving out of it would yield but poor fare, if it did not.